| My 2006 WSOP experience - very long
My 2006 wsop experience was fun, unbelievable, exciting, and ultimately disappointing.
FUN – If you have never participated in the WSOP, you are missing the highlight of your poker career. Many of you know that I have played higher limit cash games for years and tournament poker is a relatively new game for me. This was my second wsop and the thrill of the main event is unlike anything you will ever experience. I had Freddy Deeb in the table in front of me and Robert Williamson behind me. There was a UB pro that everybody but me knew at my table.
UNBELIEVABLE – About halfway through a relatively uneventful first day, the most unbelievable thing in the history of poker happened. In fact, I am very surprised that it was not reported in any of the trades. Here is the scenario: two tables away from me (1 table from the main table) a guy goes all in and is immediately called by another. One guys shows AA and the other guy shows KK. Big deal, right? Well the KK happened to be KcKc! Yes, two King of clubs! WTF! This is the WSOP! They shut down the table and begin to review video. After 20 minutes or so, the guy with AA begins to say that the guy with KK should be eliminated – not because he put the extra card into play – but because he knew he had Kc Kc and if he had lost the all in, he simply would have called out the bad cards. If he had won with no showdown, the game would have continued. It was unbelievable. It turns out that one of the FLOOR managers replaced a bad card earlier in the day. It should have been a Ks but he gave them a Kc. It is interesting to think about how many subsequent hands were ultimately affected by the mistake.
EXCITING – At the end of the day 1d, I was 126th in chips and having an exciting time. If you don’t know, each day consists of 14 hours of poker (started at noon and ended at 4:00 am) that’s a lot of poker but time really flies when you’re accumulating chips. Day 1 was more of a survival day for me. For the first 6 hours, I was dealt crap and I had to bluff my way to maintaining my 10,000 chips. At the dinner break, almost half of the participants had been eliminated. That was a nice feeling and began to entertain thoughts of making it to day 2. After a few more hours of crap hands it was close to midnight when I got into a hand with one of the Ultimate Bet pros. I was the BB with about 10,400 in chips. The UB pro had been bleeding chips all day and was down to 2,200 chips. On the button, he raised “all in”. The SB folded and I called with JJ. He flips over AK – doesn’t improve and I am sitting at 12,600. At around 1:00 am, I get into another hand with an unknown player with the same size chip stack. I am in the cutoff when I raise (4xBB = about 1,200 I think) with 10sJs. The SB calls and everyone else folds. Flop comes 2s 9s Ks spades – a flush for me. The SB checks and I check behind him. The turn is a rag but the SB makes a pot sized 3,000 bet. After about 5 minutes I decided to go over the top and go all in. He took about 5 minutes to call me (which was a good thing) but he eventually called with As Kd. The river didn’t help him and I doubled up to around 24,000. During the final level (level 6 I think) of the evening/morning, I don’t remember any specific hands but I was very active adding another 6,000 to my stack. I sat for the final 30 minutes of the day doing nothing as I knew I had made it to the second day. The bagging and tagging process of your chips takes a while but I didn’t mind at all. It was nice to finally relax and enjoy the moment.
DISAPPOINTING - After a couple of late night parties and some crazy moments with some of the pros which will remain nameless, I began day 2 as the chip leader at my table. Early on I got into a hand with Absolute Poker pro Eric Mizrachi. I ended up knocking him out when my QQ beat his 99. Another hour later… it happened. I was on the button and was holding 99. The blinds were 500/1000 and only the UTG had called. I decided to make it 4,000 to go. The SM called, the BB folded and UTG called. My dream flop came: 2s 7d 9s. The action comes to me check –check and with a flush draw on the board, I decided to make it too expensive by betting 12,000. The SB folds and after a couple of minutes, UTG goes all in (he has me covered). This guy has been playing premium hands for a couple of hours so I put him on an over pair – maybe AA or KK. I call and he turns over 8d 10s. I am shocked at what I see but I am stoked to turn over 99. In my mind, I already have doubled my stack to just over 90,000 when suddenly (and in slow-motion) a 6h comes on the river. In an instant, I am gone from the 2006 wsop. I can’t help myself from verbally berating the donkey for another 3 or 4 minutes and with my luck, that’s probably what ESPN will show on TV.
So, in the end I had a blast playing in three events. Unfortunately, I didn’t cash in a single event but I did make more than $11,000 in the ring games so it wasn’t a total loss. And, I even have one of those cool "ALL IN" chips selling for $10,000 on eBay.
Last edited by Button Potato : 08-16-2006 at 03:47 PM.
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10/5/07
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